


A Toast to the Tragedians

by StarsInMyDamnEyes



Series: Into the Jaskierverse [18]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Anyways, Attempts at humour, Banter, Ciri has Various Feelings About Stuff, Ciri is tired, Gen, Geralt is lowkey kinda done, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is So Done, Good Parent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Humour, I’m coining a genre I’m calling it Existential Crack, Jaskier | Dandelion Being an Idiot, Light Angst, No/very little plot, POV Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Stealth witcher jaskier (u dont know it), Witcher Jaskier | Dandelion, attempts at being interesting, but also soft, by someone who has absolutely no knowledge of it, it’s barely there, just. Some chatting between bros, mild depictions of drunkenness, no beta we die like stregobor fucking should have, the oneshot equivalent of filler, wherein you have too many feelings but just wanna laugh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27217624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsInMyDamnEyes/pseuds/StarsInMyDamnEyes
Summary: Ciri fell, Geralt at her back, in a tangle of arms and legs, through the portal, and the soft, late-winter stillness hit them like an honest-to-whatever-god-there-may-be flying fuckingboulder.No crickets were chirping, the trees behind where they had landed barely rustling.She’d call it serenity, if the disjointed scrabble to reorient herself could be ignored for a moment.As it was, she just got, far too slowly, to her feet, rising from the barely-frosty grass to the tune of her own deep breaths, as she heard Geralt do the same behind her.It wasn’t silent, not by any stretch of the word.But, by the gods, was itsilent.Or: Geralt and Ciri’s brief foray into the world ofDeath to the Details
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Into the Jaskierverse [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895545
Comments: 20
Kudos: 112





	A Toast to the Tragedians

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise for being so late, I was having a Time

Ciri fell, Geralt at her back, in a tangle of arms and legs, through the portal, and the soft, late-winter stillness hit them like an honest-to-whatever-god-there-may-be flying fucking _boulder_.

No crickets were chirping, the trees behind where they had landed barely rustling.

She’d call it serenity, if the disjointed scrabble to reorient herself could be ignored for a moment.

As it was, she just got, far too slowly, to her feet, rising from the barely-frosty grass to the tune of her own deep breaths, as she heard Geralt do the same behind her.

It wasn’t silent, not by any stretch of the word.

But, by the gods, was it _silent_.

Sometimes, quiet was something that one slipped into, with a quiet air of peace about you, as if gently lowering oneself into calm, glittering lagoon waters. Sometimes, it was a sudden, sharp relief, like collapsing into a cool bath on a sweltering day.

The quiet after leaving the portal, on the other hand, was more akin to barrelling into the tumultuous ocean after having taken a graceless swan-dive off of a cliff. It was nothing they shouldn’t have been used to, not after so many graceless attempts at hopping between worlds, but it seemed that whatever was tugging on the strings of fate behind the scene still lived to surprise.

Ciri laughed. At some point, whatever desperation had clawed at her chest had twisted into a wry, hollow sense of amusement.

The breeze that rustled through the half-crystalline meadow was soft and low, accompanying the twilight like a half-formed melody. Not much of a song, really, all things considered.

“You alright there, Ciri?” Geralt rumbled, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah- yeah. Just, a tad disoriented, is all.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

The smile that Ciri gave Geralt was only half-strained, almost meeting her eyes - after all, as far as tripping into worlds not one’s own went, this one was quite inoffensive.

But then, that was an oddity itself, wasn’t it? Usually, they came face-to-face with a Jaskier, at this point in time.

“Geralt.”

“Mhm.”

“Do you think he’s just... late?” Ciri tried. “This world’s Jaskier?”

“Late,” Geralt snorted. “The portals are supposed to be latching onto him across universes, or something like that-”

“Yen really is the better person to ask about these things, huh?”

“-you really thing it’s suddenly going to turn sophisticated enough to start arranging meetings? Use your head, Ciri.”

There was a soft edge to Geralt’s voice - the kind that let her know that there was something she’d missed, something that she should have already been factoring in to her theorising.

It was the same tone that Vesemir had taken with her, too, once upon a time - the one that signalled that he wasn’t mad, he was _disappointed_ \- and Ciri’s smirk grew a tad more confident as she huffed a quiet laugh to herself. It was, in many ways, utterly adorable, the way Geralt sometimes - seemingly unwittingly - adopted his mentor’s mannerisms.

Her eyes darted around the meadow they’d landed in, trying to ascertain what it was that she’d missed. Grass, dirt road, the half-rotted wooden fences of someone who wanted to keep passer-bys off of their property but didn’t much care to visit it, themselves - of _course_.

The path.

Tracks.

Ciri was by no means sure enough of her abilities to be able to confidently ascertain the authenticity of footprints left by one of Jaskier’s as-of-yet unknown, alternate-universe counterparts, but the finely-shod footprints that had just _barely_ managed to leave their imprints in the nigh-frozen mud that comprised the road he’d taken were familiar enough.

That, Geralt’s seeming certainty, as well as the fact that it was _somewhat_ unlikely that the multiverse would suddenly spit them out in the middle of nowhere after following such a clear pattern for a not-insignificant amount of time, was all rather unrealistic, as far as the entire situation could really be labelled as such. Unless, of course, the bard happened to be buried beneath their feet, which would in itself be something of an aberration.

No, it was likelier that they’d _just missed him_ , which was reassuring, even if it was also mildly inconvenient.

“He was heading somewhere.”

“Oxenfurt,” Geralt said, “with a horse by his side.”

Ciri opened her mouth, before closing it again. If Jaskier was walking a horse somewhere, instead of riding it, he’d likely already established that he was staying somewhere, and from there it was a simple process of elimination of which of his haunts it _wasn’t_. Still presumptuous, of course, but Geralt, Geralt and his witcher senses could probably _smell_ the city, or something equally unfair.

“Right,” she said, instead. “So, should we... follow, or just...?”

“Stand out in the cold for a few days?” Geralt snorted. “I’ll take the fucking academics.”

“Planning on enrolling?”

“Putting up with their company, more like.”

Ciri grinned up at him, before setting off to follow the dirt path.

It was, she was fairly certain, one of the several that branched off the main road into the city - a suspicion proven most succinctly when it did, in fact, reach its end joining onto the far more well-kept, busier road that Ciri recognised as the one that would lead them into the city.

Probably, it was one of the roads taken by farmers that lived nearby the city, when they wanted to sell their produce. It made sense, then, why Jaskier would be bringing a horse down it.

This world was so... _unobtrusive_. It was mildly unnerving.

“Shouldn’t we have caught up with him by now?”

“We sat in a field for a good while, Ciri.”

“Right.”

This world’s Oxenfurt, much like her own, was quaint and well-kept, dimly lit in a soft, orange glow, with street lanterns illuminating the cobbled roads that twisted and turned, this way and that, keeping the shadows strictly confined to the less _on-display_ parts of the city, back alleys and home doorways, all that kind of thing. Things that weren’t part of the shimmering facade of the city’s status.

She’d never much liked the holier-than-thou air of perfection of the city, but she knew Jaskier found it quaint.

Ciri bit her lip.

Should they really be searching for this world’s Jaskier? Usually, they just coincided with him, crossing paths inadvertently. If they’d missed this one, surely it was unfair to deliberately drag him into their mess?

But, on the other hand... the spectre of danger looming over them was indiscriminate in who it hurt, and Jaskier very much seemed to be in the eye of the proverbial storm. He deserved at least a warning.

Geralt’s brow was furrowed, likely pondering the same eventuality.

They’d become so lethargic, lately. The whole universe-hopping thing was getting a little bit old, really, a long spiral of universe after universe with no end in sight, being hounded by an eerie, monstrous _thing_ , the fucking Watcher that fixed its sights on them.

She fixed her eyes on the tavern.

“We should go in.”

“For our missing Jaskier, or a drink?” Geralt asked wryly, an eyebrow raised, glancing in Ciri’s general direction.

She shrugged. “Ideally, both.”

“Not a great idea, getting inebriated whilst being chased by-”

“I won’t get _utterly_ sloshed, and the monster can fucking deal,” Ciri groused. “How long’s it been, anyways? Weeks? Months? We deserve a drink... several drinks, actually. Do we have any coin?”

Geralt shrugged. “Some, probably.”

“Probably?”

“We’ve not exactly had enough time to take any contracts, Ciri.”

“Right, fair enough. Worst case scenario, we can-”

“You’re not gambling.”

Ciri scowled. “Whyever not?”

“Because,” Geralt snorted. “You’re shit.”

“I am _not_.”

“You always lose against-”

“Witchers have unfair advantages in card games,” Ciri said, primly. “It doesn’t matter how blank face is when you can _literally hear my heartbeat_ \- incidentally, something that most human opponents can’t do, you know.”

Geralt sighed. “Ciri. It’s unwise to drink when the Watcher is-”

“I know,” she said. “Geralt, I know, goddamn it, but... Look. It’s been, well, you know how it’s been. We’ve seen some shit, right, and I’m just... I don’t know. It’d be... nice, I guess, to be able to forget about everything, for a while - the Watcher, finding Jaskier, _our_ Jaskier, and the worlds we’ve come through... you know?”

Huffing something under his breath - something that might have been either a reluctant affirmation or a curse towards Ciri’s immature tendencies - Geralt, seemingly relenting, clapped her on the shoulder as he started towards the tavern.

“One drink.”

“That’s all I ask for.”

Following Geralt, Ciri stepped through the door to one of Oxenfurt’s many, _many_ taverns, populated almost entirely by the Academy’s student body and their unfortunate professors, as well as the occasional merchant and traveller.

The tang of teenage idiocy on the air was practically palpable on Ciri’s tongue, and the familiar, faint tendrils of regret stroked the back of her head. Geralt was right, it was extremely ill-advised to go out bloody _drinking_ , given the circumstances, but...

Unbidden, the thought of Thom, stumbling into her legs as the Watcher bore down on the village, sprang to her mind.

No.

She was, most _emphatically_ , not about to deal with all of that shit.

“Ciri,” Geralt said, softly.”

Blinking herself out of her almost-reverie, she cast an eye around the tavern - a tavern like any other, except perhaps a tad bit cleaner - and let her eyes slide over unfamiliar faces, lost in drunken conversation.

Oxenfurt students were quite intense with their drinking, really - not a single one of them had picked up on the witcher in their midst.

Still, Ciri continued to observe her surroundings, until her gaze caught on something, on someone she recognised - _Jaskier_.

Found him.

They had, at least, that much going for them.

“Do we approach him?”

A shrug. “Your call.”

“What- why’s it _my_ call?”

“Because,” Geralt smirked. “You’re the one who found him.”

“ _Geralt_. Fine, just- get me a drink, and I’ll say hi to Jaskier.”

“As you wish,” he said, and then... Ciri was alone in the crowd.

Weaving through the crowd of drunken students - drunken _teenagers_ , really, and young adults that likely rather thought themselves a tad more responsible than they actually were, given that they were _this_ inebriated, whilst the evening was still relatively young - Ciri made her way towards Jaskier’s chosen table, ducking under yelling matches and around slurred games of Truth or Dare and alcohol-fuelled demonstrations of youthful lust.

He was evidently sharing a drink with a few individuals Ciri faintly recognised - Oxenfurt acquaintances, she’d met them once in passing.

The night - for Jaskier, at least - was still young, given that he seemed only slightly tipsy at most.

Though, given that he must have arrived not long before Ciri and Geralt themselves, that in itself was slightly worrying.

“Hello boys,” she said, letting an easy smile onto her face. “Room for one more?”

“Why, absolutely,” Jaskier said, cutting in before any of his companions could reply. “I would never spurn anyone, lest I force them to practice the fine art of drinking alone.”

“Thanks,” she said, sliding into a mostly-unoccupied seat beside him... the passed-out, drooling academic leaning into it from the next seat over decidedly didn’t count.

“So, who might you be, then? I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” Jaskier continues, and Ciri felt a pang in her chest - if she was in the mood for it, she’d call it some shade of homesickness, but there were so many better things to occupy herself with in the moment.

“I’m Ciri,” she said, reaching out and grasping Jaskier’s hand in a firm handshake - far firmer, in fact, that she’d expected. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Naturally,” Jaskier smirked, and Ciri snorted. “Should I order you a drink, or have you already taken care of that in your short - albeit regrettable - stint of loneliness?”

“My companion has, fortunately, taken it upon himself to liaise my first drink.”

“Your first drink is involved in legal matters?”

“Fuck,” Ciri said. “No. I meant, finance.”

“A huge pity,” Jaskier sighed, leaning back in his chair and spreading his arms, elbowing his two nearest companions in the neck and face, respectively. “I would have been unbelievably honoured to make the acquaintance of someone whose drinks are even capable of cooperating professionally on a matter of mutual concern with a fellow representative.”

“Mm. But, then again, if my drinks were capable of liaising, where would it end? I should hate to bear witness to a coup d’etat enacted by a pint of ale.”

“I don’t know,” Jaskier hummed, downing another gulp from his mug - a mug that looked suspiciously like it was filled to the brim with vodka. “I’d be supportive of it.”

“But think of how embarrassing it would be, that my drink would be able to accomplish a coup d’etat, that I could not!”

“Your honour would be but a small sacrifice for the betterment of society, Ciri.”

“But would it really be worth it?”

Jaskier huffed a laugh, a sentiment echoed by his drunken fellows - although, Ciri sincerely doubted that any of them had actually registered the joke.

She wouldn’t really be much surprised if one of them collapsed from alcohol poisoning in the very near future.

“Say, Ciri,” Jaskier said, shooting for an air of casual interest and missing by a mile, “who’s your companion?”

“Just... an acquaintance,” Ciri said, her tone easily flippant. “Do you always make friends by asking such leading questions?”

“Oh, absolutely, it works like a charm,” he said. “Even so I couldn’t help but notice... a certain... resemblance between him and a... shall we say, a certain, well-known and less-than-well-respected public figure, as he walked in.”

“I guess he just has one of those faces.”

Jaskier’s brow furrows. “No, he’s...”

“He gets hired as an impersonator for plays, all the time,” Ciri continued, glaring at Jaskier - _not here, not now, not in front of all of these people, even if they can generally be assumed to have passed the threshold level of inebriation wherein new memories cannot be retained_.

A beat passed in silence between them, only the hubbub of the tavern filling the pause, and Jaskier blinked. “Are you-”

“His latest performance, in fact, he was as a hapless traveller, being sent to all kinds of alternate universes with his friend, trying to locate his other friend whilst being chased by an abomination of hitherto unknown power.”

Jaskier laughed. “No offence to you, dear Ciri, but I am now going to take it upon myself to pretend you didn’t just say everything that you definitely just _did_ say. Inter-dimensional travel, whilst undoubtedly _possible_ , is not exactly supposed to work... like a narrative in a story! I’m no expert, but I know some of the theory, and the amount of power needed to-”

“Entirely understandable,” Ciri shrugged, cutting him off. “But before I drop the subject entirely, I have to ask - you haven’t happened to meet yourself on the street, or in a dark alleyway, or something?”

Jaskier furrowed his brow. “Only in the mirror, I’m afraid.”

Exhaling sharply, Ciri let her frustration flicker across her face for only a moment. “Unsurprising.”

“But still a disappointment, I’d assume.”

“Massively. Can- my companion join us for a drink?”

Jaskier’s face lit up. “Why, naturally! The more, the merrier, I’d say!”

Ciri grinned, and twisted back around in her chair, waving Geralt over, and sure enough, a vaguely grumpy, white-haired figure emerged from the crowd, holding two drinks, glowering at Ciri.

“We’re not going to spend a night drinking with his friends,” Geralt said, as soon as he was within speaking distance.

“I said one drink, I _meant_ one drink,” Ciri swore. “I know we have things to do.”

Geralt nodded. “Good.”

“Spoilsport,” one of Jaskier’s friends yelled, and Geralt glared at him - to very little effect.

Ciri took her drink - an ale, because of _course_ it was - from Geralt with a quiet thanks, and raised it to her lips. Ideally, she’d have been getting a tad bit drunker, but- well. Circumstances, and all that.

She seldom got drunk, really, valuing the integrity of her liver and having no real desire to replace it with a shrivelled, knobbly husk of scar tissue, but she felt confident in calling on extenuating circumstances this time.

“So, Jaskier,” Ciri said, placing her almost-full mug on the table, with her hand rested lightly atop it. “This is my friend, the one that I mentioned. He’s very pleased to meet you.”

“I can speak for myself, Ciri,” Geralt groused, downing half of his pint in one gulp.

“Yes, yes, I know you’re a very big boy,” she smirked.

Jaskier took a deep bow over the table, sticking his nose into his drink with admirable grace. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ciri’s friend. Do you have another name that I might call you, or are you just Ciri’s Friend?”

“Geralt.”

A drunken holler interrupted their conversation, one of Jaskier’s friends- “Like the witcher?”

“No,” Geralt grunted, and Ciri jumped on the opportunity.

“Yes! His mother really hated one of those folks in... what was it, _Blaviken_ , that he killed, and decided to name this Geralt in honour of that witcher.”

“Blaviken was a few months ago,” Jaskier snorted.

“Geralt was born yesterday.”

“And yet, somehow, he looks so _old_.”

Ciri nodded sagely. “His skincare routine is something awful.”

“The _horror_.”

Geralt downed the rest of his drink - something, Ciri noted with some distaste, that was _far_ stronger than ale.

The traitor.

Ciri raised her mug to her lips.

One drink.

Just one drink, one night of faux-drunken revelry, one night of conversation.

* * *

“We should leave,” Ciri said, as the moon climbed higher into the sky, this world’s not-quite-Jaskier having left with his cohort of academics and fools to revel elsewhere and possibly - if she’d heard it right - name a horse.

Geralt raised an eyebrow in her direction. “It’s only been a few hours since we arrived, Ciri. Are you sure-”

“I can handle it.”

She breathed out, a long sigh. “Besides, the Watcher - I don’t want to linger for too long, not if it can track us.”

“Ciri,” Geralt rested a hand on her shoulder. “Is this about the last world?”

“No- not exactly, it’s just... I don’t want to- They’re _people_ , Geralt, just because they’re not people from our world doesn’t mean that they’re worth endangering to take a rest break!”

“That’s not what I said.”

Geralt’s voice was low, soft, reassuring, but there was an edge to it - an edge that meant that she was edging into the territory of outright catastrophising. It wasn’t something she was prone to, by any means, not these days, but- well.

“Sorry,” Ciri said. “I’m just. I can do it. God knows I’ve pulled enough portals between dimensions, and - we won’t find Jaskier here, and I don’t want to linger when all that’ll do is invite disaster.”

She huffed a frustrated sigh, and Geralt looked at here through warm, amber eyes, opening his mouth as if to say something, before closing it again and nodding slightly, slowly.

“Go on.”

Ciri smiled wanly at him, and stepped forward. There was no-one really around at this hour, in those place, no-one to see them or care. The cold, midnight breeze felt calming against her face as she reached out and pulled, tugging a passage through the fabric of this world and the next.

Jaskier wasn’t here, and she’d let this world’s version keep his life, his secrets and his privacy; it wasn’t hers to know.

Lingering would be a fool’s exercise. Time was an ever-flowing, ever-waning commodity, and she did not have the luxury of relishing within it when such weights were pressed on her shoulders. Find Jaskier, stop the Watcher, get _home_...

“Let’s go,” she breathed, and Geralt nodded, and followed her as she stepped through the icy, disorienting swirling of the portal, and on into the next world.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell that i was not at all in a good headspace when i wrote this. It’s not the _best_ I could do but it is, in the cardinal words of,,, idk life probably,,, GOOD ENOUGH.
> 
> I wrote myself into so many corners here jfghkdshg. “Haha yeah let’s set it when Jaskier gets drunk and names his horse Bollocks in ch9


End file.
